


Guide Us Through The Night

by geckoholic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-25
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 12:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean tried to save a freshman student from the vampires who killed her roommate, but now all that's left is to try and save her from herself.  - Set a few years in the future, but nothing much changed. Explicit spoilers for S6 and S7.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide Us Through The Night

**Author's Note:**

> For Hoodie Time's [Dean-focused h/c fic and art challenge](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/549375.html), based on [this prompt](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/549500.html?thread=7183228#t7183228%20) by rokhal. It strayed a little, but I think I covered the basics. 
> 
> Beta'd by sistabro, who is as thorough as she is helpful. Thank you!! And I tinkered with it again afterwards, so all remaining mistakes and oddities are mine. 
> 
> Title is from "Come On" by Slut.

She's bathed in blood. Some of it is hers, some of it belongs to the dead vamps, some... Sam's not keen on thinking about the specifics. There were enough dead bodies spread on the ground before they got in here to give him hints, and the scenario his mind comes up with isn't pretty. 

"Nadine?" Dean crouches down, pats her shoulder, and her head lolls to the side; she's unconscious, or worse, and Sam takes a closer look, tries to make out whether or not her chest is moving — if she's breathing — while Dean curses under his breath, presses two fingers to her pulse point. "Shit." 

"Is she —" 

"No. But not far off. We need to get her out of here." Said and done, Dean sweeps her up into his arms. He looks at Sam expectantly, a little lost, eyes darting down to the face of the motionless body he's holding. 

Sam takes point on their way out, machete raised. He's quite sure they got them all, but not sure enough to bet all their lives on it. 

 

***

 

**the day before**

The campus is busy this time of the day. Students spill out of the buildings and towards the cafeteria to have lunch; it's slightly unnerving to swim against the stream. They have an appointment with a witness, a freshman student who watched her roommate get killed by what Sam and Dean suspect was a vampire. 

It takes some running around in the hallways of the dorm, but eventually they find the room. Sam knocks and listens to Dean fidget behind him. Colleges always make Dean tense, still afraid that they'll make Sam miss Stanford enough that he'll take off. Which is ridiculous, but no matter how many times Sam tries to tell Dean that, he's pretty sure his brother will never believe it.

After a minute, the door opens to a messy, dark room with two beds and an overflowing desk. There's no light on in the room despite the glow of the computer screen, and Sam has to blink a little to get her into focus. She looks like the typical stereotype of a college student, pretty in this nerdy, unobtrusive way, skinny, no make-up, long dark hair in a simple pony tail. 

"Hi," Sam says, trying not to loom. "You're Nadine?" 

"Yeah." For a moment she stares at both of them by turns, and then extends her hand with a shy smile. "We talked on the phone, right? You said you'd come by. About Holly." 

Sam nods, and Nadine steps back to let both of them in. She points to one of the beds, and they both sit while she settles on the other one, cross-legged. She reaches for a half-empty bowl of cereal, pokes around in it with a spoon, sets it back down onto the night stand and shrugs. "Not really hungry since it happened. Every time I close my eyes, I see her, all that blood..." 

"What happened?" Dean asks, voice low and understanding, the special croon he only pulls out for shell-shocked victims and witnesses; he's perfected it over the years, a long way from the socially awkward twenty-something that couldn't quite deal with other people's pain. It's not like he never knew how to be empathic, but he used to reserve that for family — Sam and Dad. The way he talks to survivors of any kind now is oddly reminiscent of the voice he made use of when Sam got upset as a kid. Ever since Sam can remember, it's been hard-wired into him to calm down at the sound of it, soothing and reassuring and Dean. 

It seems to have a similar effect on Nadine. She exhales, leans forward. "We went out. It was a Friday night, and we both decided we'd have enough time for studying over the weekend. Term papers are due soon, you know?"

They nod almost in unison. 

"Anyway, we went to that bar, Ricardo's. It was kinda shady, but a friend of Holly's recommended it to us. Cheap drinks, good music, cute guys." She blinks away tears, lapses into silence. 

Dean's the one who prompts her to pick up the thread. "Sounds like my kind of bar, if you swap 'guys' with 'women'." 

That produces a sad, fond smile. "I'm usually not big on partying and all that, but Holly was quite the flirt. It came easy to her. I'm generally just along for the ride." Her hands fly up to her face, like she just now realized she's on the verge of crying, and she rubs at her eyes. "She met someone she seemed genuinely interested in. Holly wasn't the type to ditch her friends when she found someone who'd caught her attention, but I saw some girl who works with me at the library and retreated to give the two of them some time alone." 

Nadine's openly crying now, and Sam watches as Dean reaches out for a box of tissues, takes one and hands it to her. The next of those sad little smiles is just for Dean; Sam might as well have left the room given how intensely she's focused on his brother now. 

"Thanks," she says, dabs at her face and blushes. "Oh man, it's usually not this easy to get the water works running. But, just. We've known each other since high school, came up here together. She's my best friend. Was. _Fuck. _"__

This time, Dean waits her out, gives her time to regain her composure at her own speed. Sam watches them, happy to melt into the background if that's what will keep her talking. 

The tissue gets put to use a few more times, but eventually, she continues. "When I went looking for her again, she wasn't in the bar anymore. I found her out back, with the guy wrapped all around her, and I was going to go back inside and let them do whatever they were doing. I thought they were making out. But then he turned around, and I saw the blood around his mouth. He —" She breaks off, clears her throat. "He came after me, and I ran inside to get help. By the time we went back outside, he was gone, and Holly was, she..."

"We're so sorry." 

Nadine looks up, searching Dean's gaze. Her expression hardens, grief mixing with an angry sort of evaluation. Dean lets himself be scrutinized, still and patient, oozing calm and reassurance, sincerity without a hint of judgment. Her eyes narrow, and she takes a deep breath. "The police say he must've been insane, Dracula-wannabe gone nutty or something, but that wasn't it, right?" 

Dean looks up to exchange a look with Sam before he answers. "No. We believe it was, well, the real thing. An actual vampire." 

"Okay." She nods to herself. "A vampire. Huh." 

 

***

 

**now**

They prop Nadine up in the one of the beds; she'd probably be better off in a hospital where she could get the proper care for this level of blood loss: blood infusions, doctors, drugs. But that also means they'd have to drop her off and not look back — given the number of times either of them has popped up on the most-wanted-list, they can't show their faces in a hospital with a bloody, unconscious victim in tow. It's not likely that anyone will remember their faces, but if they somehow get into the system, they're fucked. Dean had been ready to risk it, for Nadine's sake, but Sam had vetoed against it. All that blood... He didn't want to say it, but there's another option here, worse than her dying, and if he's right then a hospital isn't the place Nadine should be when they find out. 

So they took her back to their motel. 

As soon as they have her settled, Dean disappears into the bathroom, putters around for a minute or two, and emerges with a bowl of water and a washcloth. At Sam's puzzled look, he frowns. "Can't leave her like that, right? She'll freak when she wakes up." 

"Dean —" 

Halfway to the bed, Dean spins around to glare at Sam so fast some of the water sloshes out of the bowl. "Shut it, man. She's going to wake up. We're not losing this one." 

Sam doesn't have the heart to argue and watches as Dean cleans the blood off her face, her neck. He doesn't say anything at the sight of the multitude of bite marks that reveals and neither does Dean.

 

***

 

**the day before**

They leave Nadine's dorm barely five minutes after dropping the bomb, enough time to get the address of the bar where Holly died, exchange numbers just in case, and assure her that they would take care of it. 

Dean's phone rings before they're even back at the motel. 

He picks it up, mouths Nadine's name at Sam. He listens for a moment, then rolls his eyes. "No, don't, not a good idea. Let us deal with this, and—" 

Nadine's voice isn't clear enough that Sam can make out what she says, but she definitely just upped the volume. 

"No way. You stay where you are, one of us is going to come and stay with you, it's too risky to — What? No! Don't do that, it's fucking suicide." He closes his eyes, and if Sam knows his brother at all then he's mentally counting to ten as he listens to her reply. "Fine, okay. Stay there, lock the doors. I'll ring when we're back at the campus to pick you up. Don't step outside until we're there, understand?" 

The phone gets slammed shut and jammed into Dean's jacket with feeling. Sam's tempted to point out that whatever happened wasn't the phone's fault, but the expression on Dean's face keeps him from it. "What's up?" 

"Someone watched too much Buffy when she was younger, that's what." Dean snorts, shakes his head disapprovingly. "Nadine got a note from the vamp that killed her friend and decided to go after it. With or without us. I figured 'with us' is the option more likely to keep her alive." 

 

***

 

**now**

Half an hour after they get back to the motel, Nadine's eyelids begin to flutter. She flails, reaches out blindly, and grips Dean's wrist as the first thing she can get a hold of. "Dean? Is that you? Oh god, make it _stop_!"

Dean tries to peal her hand off his arm, with little success. He winces as she presses harder; Sam can see Dean's skin turn red around her grip and he inches closer, ready to step in if he has to. 

But Dean beckons him to stay back by raising his free arm slightly, palm open, focus still on her."Make what stop? Nadine? What's wrong?"

"The light and the noises and God, _what's happening to me?_ " Her voice is shrill, she sounds pained and confused. Her flailing eases up, but she doesn't let go of Dean and he stops trying to get her to let go. Instead, he puts his other hand over hers, squeezes it. 

"Tell me, Nadine, tell me exactly what you hear, what you see. What's with the light and the noises?" 

She screws her eyes shut even tighter, as if talking about it makes it worse. "Everything is so bright. The light hurts my eyes. And there's this noise, like a heartbeat only louder, and it's everywhere. It's, I dunno, it feels like it's calling for me. I can feel it throbbing under my skin." 

Dean throws a brief glance at Sam, and one look into his eyes affirms what Sam's been afraid of: bleeding her almost dry isn't the only thing those creatures did to her. 

 

***

 

**the day before**

Of course Nadine isn't content with staying in the car when they check out the bar. It almost always ends badly when they take the witness back to the crime scene, but, as Dean already found out and Sam quickly learned during a shouting match in front of the bar, Nadine can be pretty insistent when she wants something. No's not really part of her vocabulary. 

That doesn't keep her from puking at the sight of the police band protecting the place where Holly was found in the alley, the traces of blood clinging to the pavement and wall. 

"You okay there?" Dean doesn't even try to keep the mocking note out of his tone. 

Nadine grimaces and spits. "Peachy. Give me a minute." 

Because Sam likes to think he's still the Winchester brother with his heart in the right place, he digs in his pockets for chewing gum, finds a strip and hands it to her. "It's okay to get nauseous over something like this if you're not used to it." 

"Don't treat me like baby," she demands, but accepts the gum anyway. "So, what are we looking for? How can I help?" 

Dean steps around Nadine, past the police tape and the small pile she just left near the dumpster, and crouches down to give the area around the blood splatters a closer inspection. "You know what'd really help? Not havin' to drag your ass around with us while we try to save it. That'd be _so_ helpful." 

"What, while I hide away in my dorm room and tremble like an aspen leaf every time someone approaches the door? Forget it, not gonna happen." Sam can hear a note of fear in her voice, but she hides it behind a thick layer of defiance. Chin held high and arms akimbo, she glares at Dean. "Give me something to do to help or don't, but I'm not leaving your side until this is over. I won't hide. Understand?" 

Dean's eyes fly to Sam, amused quirk to his lips, but he straightens his expression out before he looks back to Nadine. "You wanna help? All right. See if you can charm the barkeeper out of his credit card receipts for that night." 

"That's illegal. He's not supposed to hand that out to just anyone." 

"Yeah, that's where the charm part comes in." Dean waves a hand in direction of the door. "Shoo, off you go." 

She makes a face, but turns and strolls towards the back door. As soon as he's out of her eye-shot, Dean unfolds himself and moves to hide behind the door frame, out of her sight but keeping her in his. He looks at Sam, nods at the crime scene in front of them. "I'll keep an eye on her. You got this?"

"Sure I do. And you know how slim the chance is that our vamp paid with a credit card?" 

Dean grins. "Sam, _please_. But she doesn't." 

 

***

 

**now**

Nadine sits on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest, breath coming in measured little puffs, and she still refuses to open her eyes. "This can't be true. I haven't been turned. I'm not a fucking vampire. _I'm not!_

"Then open your eyes and take a nice little eyeful of the ceiling lights, tell me you don't hear mine and Sam's heartbeat, so enticing and powerful it drowns everything else out. Tell me you're not so hungry that you feel like you're gonna go insane if you don't rip someone's throat out and drink 'im dry right the fuck now." Dean's been perched on the foot of the bed, but now he scoots higher up, leans in to her. "It takes all you've got to stay where you are and not leap at my neck this very second, doesn't it?" 

And fuck if that isn't a punch in the stomach. Sam still doesn't remember everything from the time his soul was still locked in the cage while his body walked around topside — it's like watching a movie, the facts are there but the emotions are missing. But he's aware that Dean's talking from experience, that Dean getting turned had been Sam's fault — hell, it had been Sam's _plan_ , for fuck's sake. Sam hadn't felt much of anything then, but listening to Dean describe it makes him feel plenty guilty now.

"Stay back!" Nadine's head whips around violently, away from Dean, and her hands come up to cover her ears. "And shut up, shut up, _shut up_. 

He doesn't do either, gets further up in her space instead, and Sam practically quivers with the need to launch himself at Dean and haul him back. But his brother knows what he's doing and Sam's quite sure Dean wouldn't appreciate the hero act, so he shoves his hands into his pockets and stays where he is. 

Slowly, inch by inch, Dean reaches out for Nadine's hands, strokes a finger down each, and detaches both of them from her ears. "You're doing so good. Nadine, listen to me. You're so strong. We may have a way to help you, change you back, but I need to know who turned you. You gotta remember, describe him or her to me, so we can go back and find the body." 

"Okay." She clenches her teeth, then takes a few deep breaths. "Okay. How do I know who did it?" 

"Whoever it was must've fed you something. Their blood. That's how they turn the victims."

She's silent long enough that Sam thinks she won't answer, that she doesn't know, and when she finally speaks it's uncertain and more of a question than a statement. "It was a woman, I think? Blond, older than me. More your age. I didn't see much of her, it was dark, but she did press something warm and wet to my mouth." 

Dean gets up. "That's good, Nadine, real good. Try to get some sleep, yeah? We'll do the rest." 

 

***

 

**the day before**

As expected, the credit card receipts don't turn up anything, and the police swiped the crime scene well enough that Sam couldn't find any other clues. 

Nadine takes a break from wrinkling her nose at the state of the ratty motel room long enough to ask, "What now?" 

Dean sits down on the small, old sofa shoved into a corner of the room and leaves it to Sam to answer. "Well, we already, uh, got hold of the police report yesterday, and the only lead we got out of it was you."

Her eyes widen. "Got a hold of a police report? Do I want to know?" 

"Probably not. Anyway, what's left now is to stake out the bar. See if it goes back there tonight, follow it if it does." Sam picks up a few takeaway boxes from the day before in a vain effort to clean up at least some, dumps them in the trash can. 

"Isn't that risky?" 

"It is," Dean says, "Which is why one of us will go get some supplies and do that while the other stays here with you." Nadine throws him an incredulous look; Sam half-expects her to throw another fit and insist on coming along again, but what he gets is the opposite. 

"Shouldn't you both go? I can stay here on my own. It doesn't know I'm here, or that I'm with you, how's it going to find me?" She lets herself fall onto the sofa next to Dean, coughs at the cloud of dust that rises from the cushions.

Dean eyes her, but doesn't move away. "It probably caught your scent in the alley, the night it killed Holly. And if that happened, it won't ever forget how you smell. It has very sharp senses. Even if it's holed up on the other side of town, chances are it's aware of where you are right now." 

"Wow, encouraging. So it could sniff me out from _across town_?" 

"Yep." 

"Okay, then, I'll wait in the car. One of you's gonna go in, the other one's gonna stay with me." 

"No." Dean's still calm, but the long-suffering sigh that follows clues Sam in to just exactly how annoying he finds this whole argument. 

And honestly, Sam's getting a little bit curious as to who's going to out-stubborn whom. If he thinks back to all the arguments they had when Sam was roughly Nadine's age, his money is on her. 

She huffs. "I won't sit here and, like, play cards with one of you while the other risks his neck to save me."

"Sweetheart, that's exactly what you'll be doing. I'm gonna go to the the bar and Sam will stay here. You don't understand how dangerous —"

Nadine whirls around, stabs at the air in front of Dean's face with her finger. "No, you don't understand! I watched Holly die and I couldn't do anything to keep that from happening. And now I'm supposed to just watch while you guys... See, I may have no idea about what it is you're doing here or about vampires in general or how to hunt them, but even I know that going after a thing like that alone is just plain stupid." 

Dean takes hold of her wrist, guides her hand down to her thigh. "We know what we're doing, don't worry. If we say it's okay that one of us stays behind, then it will be. Trust me. All right?" 

She glares at Dean, slumps down deeper into the seat like a sulking child, but eventually she nods. "All right."

 

***

 

**now**

"And don't take any unnecessary risks. If you have any reason to believe that they're not all dead, you come back here and we'll try again in daylight." Dean triple checks one of the machetes — machetes which Dean had cleaned and re-sharpened not a half an hour ago, but can't seem to leave alone anyways. Not for the first time, Sam suspects Dean's developed some kind of a compulsion. 

Ever since Sam came back with the devil ridding shotgun, almost dying again before they got rid of him for good, Dean has developed a tendency to dial the over protectiveness up a few additional notches when he's nervous. Sam knows that and he's fine with it, really, but he's also overtired and jumpy and so not in the mood for it. "Dean, they're dead. I'll be in and out in couple of minutes, and back here in half an hour. You were the one who told Nadine we know what we're doing, right?" 

"Yeah, and didn't that work out smoothly." Sam shoots him a glare, and Dean back-peddles, lays down the machete and holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "Could be some survived, booked it, and came back. Look out for yourself, is all I'm saying." 

"I will, promise."

"And we have the recipe for the cure in the journal, right? You wrote it down, back when... Well, you know." 

There it is again, that punch to Sam's stomach at the reminder of what his robo-version did to Dean. He wants to apologize, but knows that's not going to fly, so he simply says, "Dean."

Dean looks up from checking the machete's edge a fourth time. "Hm?" 

"You were speaking from experience. Earlier, with Nadine." Sam makes it a statement, not a question, to give Dean less room for denial.

"We're not talking about that. Wasn't you. I thought we had that sorted out." His gaze zeroes in on Sam, eyebrows raised, posture all annoyed and indifferent, but his eyes tell a different story. They're begging Sam not to stir up any more memories, to just drop it already. 

And Sam does; it's the only thing he can do by way of an apology. "Okay." 

He pulls on his jacket, extends his hand for the machete, and Dean gives the blade one more stroke before he gives it to him. "Take care." 

Sam does his best to smile at his brother reassuringly. "You, too." 

 

***

 

**the day before**

They should've gotten suspicious when Nadine gave in that easily, but now it's too late for should have-could have and what-if's. 

Because now she's gone. 

Sam had been in the shower shampooing his hair when Dean had sauntered in to take a piss and possibly amuse himself by fucking with the hot water supply — they have yet to come across a motel where flushing the toilet doesn't do funny things to the water temperature in the shower, anywhere from scalding hot to ice cold to a succession of the two. Nadine had taken her chance and snuck out. 

And now Dean's furious. In fact, he's out of his mind. He keeps up a constant litany of "fucking reckless" and "so stupid" and "damn ungrateful brat" as they drive around to look for her, see if she's still in the area. After, when they've admitted to themselves that driving around randomly is not going to work out and returned to the motel to regroup, Dean turns quiet and still. 

For Sam that's worse to witness. 

"We'll find her," he eventually says, and Dean looks up from the map of the town he was studying. He doesn't bother with a reply. 

 

***

 

**now**

Sam didn't get it at first, why Dean took to Nadine immediately and vice versa. After all the time they've been hunting together now, all the people they met, Sam knows that Dean has always had a soft spot for kids but never really hit it off with teenagers and students. Dean and Nadine, that shouldn't have worked; they shouldn't have gotten along. 

But as he wanders through the dark, old house the vampires holed up in, looking for the head of a blonde, middle-aged woman, it occurs to him: Nadine is about as old as Ben must be now, not much older than Emma was, physically, when they ran into the Amazons. The Braedens are still an off-limits topic, but Sam knows without a doubt that Dean never forgot them, never stopped thinking about them and worrying and beating himself up about what happened. And even though they never did talk about the monster-spawn issue, Sam also knows that it hit a nerve back then, reminded Dean of something he'd given up when he made the choice to keep hunting. Or, more to the point, when life and fate made that choice for him. 

It's a bit of a stretch, and maybe Dean's not even aware of it, but it makes all too much sense to Sam. That's the reason why he stays in the house for almost an hour, digs through the dead bodies of vampires and humans alike until his back starts to ache and he's sure he's looked everywhere twice. Takes the time to be extra sure, even though he knows Dean must be worrying himself sick back at the motel. 

But if there was a vampire that fit Nadine's vague description, she either escaped or was long gone before Sam and Dean barged in here. 

 

***

 

**the day before**

In the end, they stick to their initial plan: back to the bar for the night. Both of them go in to scope things out, circulating independently. Dean might be going little gray around his temples, but apparently he's still prime monster catnip regardless of his age; it takes precisely twenty minutes until a girl half his age chats him up. Fifteen more until they retreat out back and Dean signals Sam with turn of his head to follow them. He arrives just in time to see her make a move for Dean's throat. 

There's a joke in there somewhere, and if the situation wasn't be so dire Sam would probably try to make it, but now's neither the time nor the place. 

Between the two of them, they manage to overpower the vampire quickly, and after a bit of a scuffle Sam has her against the wall with a long knife to her neck. 

Dean leans in close and yanks her head forward by her hair until her face is barely an inch away from his. "Where's your nest?"

"Oh, I won't tell, you didn't say _please_ ," she hisses, bares her fangs at him. Sam presses the knife in harder until he draws a thin line of blood. 

"Answer him," he says. 

She snorts a laugh, heedless of the fact that it makes her throat move against the edge of the knife. "And what if I don't?" 

"If you're lucky, we'll kill you on the spot." Dean takes a syringe of Dead Man's Blood out of his jacket pocket just far enough that she can see it. "Not sure if I'll be feelin' so charitable, though, if I have to wait much longer. Make up your mind, clock's ticking." 

Clearly weighing her options, her gaze flutters back and forth between the syringe, Dean, and Sam. "Fuck," she snarls, then "112 Barter Lane, a little out of town, abandoned house."

"How many of you are there?"

"Dunno exactly, but maybe a dozen?" 

"Okay," says Dean and nods at Sam. He's already on his way to the car when Sam finishes her off. 

 

***

 

**now**

The lights are dimmed when Sam gets back and there's loud music coming from the room. That's not going to win them any points with the manager or the other guests, but since they're not exactly settling in for the long haul in this place, Sam can't say he cares. He unlocks the door, steps inside —

— and freezes. Nadine's no longer on the bed, she's up and has Dean crowded against the wall in the kitchenette. Sam can only see the back of her head from that angle — her body shields Dean from view — but given her recent transformation and the positions they're in, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what she's doing. 

Dean doesn't struggle, he doesn't really move at all. His hand clings to her shoulder; it looks like he put it there to push her back, but now he just clutches a handful of her clothes, pulling at them weakly. 

This has been going on for a while. And that's bad, Sam knows it's bad, but he can't move, stands frozen with horror for several precious seconds. Time moves in slow motion, and it's the sound that finally rips him from his stupor — faint, barely-there slurps accompanied by a low whimper. 

"Hey," Sam yells, "Nadine!"

She jumps back, clamps her hands over her mouth. The lower half of her face is covered in blood; rivulets of it run down her chin and it's smeared up to her cheeks. _Dean's blood._

Without her body to hold him in place, Dean sinks down to the ground, limp. He's still conscious, groans at the change in altitude, but he's pale and, when Sam sinks down next to him, his eyes are unfocused. His breathing is ragged, sped-up and out of rhythm. He doesn't react when Sam gently taps his cheek. 

Behind them, Nadine hovers, but doesn't quite dare to come close again. "I'm sorry, Sam, I'm so sorry, I couldn't resist any longer, I couldn't fight it! Sam, is he okay? He'll be fine, right?" 

She takes another step towards them, reaches out, and Sam leaps to his feet. "Stay the fuck back. You could've _killed_ him! Would have, if I hadn't gotten back in time." 

Her eyes flicker down to Dean, to the blood that's still trickling from the bite wounds. She whispers, "I'm so sorry, I really am," before her face contorts and Sam can see her fangs breaking through again. 

She doesn't get far. Sam left his machete in the car, but the other one, the one Dean used in the nest, lies on the sink where Dean left it after he cleaned and sharpened them both. All Sam has to do is step to the side and reach out, and he's got it. 

Her head and body topple down not far from Dean, who stares at them, then at Sam, before his eyes fall shut and he loses consciousness. 

 

***

 

Sam didn't dare leave Dean alone long enough during the night to get rid of the body — not with Dean riding the edge of hypovolemic shock for those first few hours — so he sneaks out just before dawn to take care of it. When he gets back, Dean's awake. 

"You burned her?" 

"Yeah." Sam takes off his jacket and heads to the bathroom to strip off the rest of his clothes for a shower; he wants to wash the stench of burnt flesh away so Dean won't have to smell it on him, but he keeps talking through the open door. "What happened last night?" 

"What do you think? She snapped, I wasn't prepared for it. Got the better of me."

"I'm sorry, man." 

Dean sits up straight in bed, rolls his neck experimentally and hisses. "What for? Not your fault."

It isn't Dean's either, but telling him that would be futile, just end up hurting Dean. So Sam bites his tongue like he's done so many times before and lets the silence speak for itself.


End file.
